Nation, Identity and the Intervening Role of the State: A Study of the Secessionist Movement in Kashmir

Abstract

XA4 TITH MASSIVE PUBLIC SUPPORT, a secessionist movement accompanied by V political insurgency began in the Kashmir Valley in 1989. That year saw the transformation of Kashmiri demands for autonomy (reverting back to the pre-1953 status of limited association with India) into demands for sovereignty and freedom (azadi) from the Indian state. Immediate catalysts for this transformation were the unpopular alliance between Jammu and Kashmir's ruling party, the National Conference, and the Congress party, the rigging of the 1989 elections in the state by this alliance, the kidnapping in Srinagar of the daughter of India's home minister and in early 1990 the appointment of GovernorJagmohan. The regional government's capacity to govern declined rapidly as widespread activism outside established political channels became a norm. The National Conference party, whose various factions had ruled the state during the previous five decades, lost its hegemony over politics. Kashmir's traditional leaders, who had derived their legitimacy from the nationalist movement against the Dogra ruler in the forties, were replaced by the likes of the younger generation's Shabir Shah, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Omar Farooq whose appeal derived from the movement's successes in challenging the Indian state and from its pursuance of the goal of self-determination for the people of Kashmir. During the past seven years, the movement has not only maintained a solid momentum in the valley itself but it has also spread to the three Muslim-majority districts of the Jammu region. In order to deal with the crisis, the government of India has replaced three governors in the president-ruled state of Jammu and Kashmir, none of whom was able to initiate a political process in the valley. Moreover, the Indian government's various offers of generous economic packages to the state in order to generate further employment and economic development have failed to mitigate the Kashmiri masses' support for the militants' cause.